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← Return to Chronic Back Pain for Years
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Every so often, my VA Primary Care doctor will ask me about making an appointment for a pap smear and/or a mammogram. One time, he said to me, "You know, I don't really care if you EVER want me to schedule them. I am PAID as a doctor to SAY I care, but truthfully, I couldn't care less.".
I left there thinking that maybe all doctors secretly feel this way, and maybe my doctor was just being exceptionally truthful to me and I should feel honored.
Perhaps this explains his attitude about my back pain now..???
Replies to "Every so often, my VA Primary Care doctor will ask me about making an appointment for..."
How blessed you are!! I am so happy for you.. you are a wonderful, caring person and deserve no less!!!
@lifetime I think there are certain things that they must suggest to you but they cannot push you if you don’t want them. For instance it was suggested a long time ago that I have a colonoscopy. I refused it and my PCP did not push it at all. She had to suggest it though. Eventually I knew two people in their 50s who died from colon cancer so I did end up having colonoscopies. That is probably what your doctor was trying to say — that it was up to you, but he had to mention it.
I hope you don’t leave the group, we do care. I hope you find a doctor with whom you are more comfortable. I think the suggestion by @cognac is a good one. That will be another doctor that hopefully will be on your “team” and be supportive of you. It can’t hurt.
JK
@lifetime. I have become very skeptical of many doctors. I do still go to a gynecologist and I love him, he really does seem to care, and my transplant surgeon and almost all of the doctors that I have had at MGH have been wonderful. I think though that with the doctors working for the hospitals, basically having 9 - 5 jobs because hospitalists take care of the patients if they are unfortunate to require hospitalization, has created doctors who care very superficially. It’s just a job to many of them. I really hate this system. If you are sick enough to have to be hospitalized, do you want to see a doctor with whom you have developed a relationship, or a stream of strangers who are hospitalists?
JK
contentandwell,
Kaiser docs are hospitalists for the most part. So much so that when I had my second child I refused to birth him in hospital. Their pediatrics follow the children through life.
My docs at Scripps here in San Diego are mostly supportive, however, they do miss things and do not necessarily pick up on how one problem could be the root of a very different problem than what they recognize. I still see a PCP due to them expecting the PCP to do the screening. It is often a waste of time.
I just self refer for most things unless, like an MRI, it absolutely needs a referral.
BUT...as far as pain goes, I found that coupling a B complex with pain meds helps rather a lot. No, I'm not a doc, not a nurse, not anything but a patient.
I hope you see better days soon.
Eileena
@eileena I didn't know that about Kaiser, they do not operate on the east coast. So even if you are with Kaiser you can be covered gong outside of their network?
This was my gripe with my PCP. As a doctor of internal medicine, he should have been able to pick up on the relationship between my problems and put 2 and 2 together with but it took a neurologist to suspect it was my liver, not something neurological that was causing my HE episodes.
I too self-refer, such an advantage when you get on Medicare.
JK
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@lifetime my civilian Dr.is concerned about my health not there image